Is Coimbatore proving to be geographically advantageous for Maoists to re-group and consolidate?
If one were to go by the recent arrests and resultant revelations about youth being brainwashed and roped into the Naxal movement, the western districts, which share borders with Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, are proving to be geographically advantageous for the extremists to come together and consolidate their base. The arrest of top Maoist leader Roopesh on May 3 on the city’s outskirts came as a rude shock to the State police as he and his wife had stayed in Tirupur for close to two-years.
The interrogation led to the realisation that that the Maoists were involved in brainwashing youth and making them members of their outfit, ‘Q’ Branch sources said. This turned the focus of the police on Naxals in a case of a 23-year-old Santhosh Kumar of Anamalai who went missing in August 2014. The police are firmly of the opinion that one of the five held now had recruited the youth into their outfit. The police also suspect that a few other fringe radical outfits with base here provided logistical support to the arrested Maoists.
Coimbatore region by virtue of its floating population and migrant workforce is proving to be ideal for the Maoists to rent a house and operate, says a Q branch official. In addition, from any pocket in Coimbatore they hardly require six to eight hours to reach Andhra Pradesh or Kerala or Bangalore.
Reports of suspicious movement of persons in Western Ghats and the recent attacks at Silent Valley and Palakkad only signal the efforts of the Naxals to make resurgence, sources point out.
Strengthening of police stations in district borders with additional manpower, roping in tribal youth from hamlets in Western Ghats as intelligence input providers and establishment of bunkers for gun totting police personnel only indicate that the State intelligence machinery is all out to pre-empt the efforts of the Maoists to stage a comeback.
(With inputs from M.K. Ananth)
